by Brian Castle

Financial technology startup Wealth Factory, led by dynamic black women entrepreneurs Angel Rich, Courtney Keen, and Dominique Broadway, is breathing life into an emerging brand meant to capture the imaginations of young people in need of financial education.

The brand, WealthyLife, represents the Wealth Factory’s mission to reduce poverty by providing equal access to quality, easy to understand financial literacy across the world. The mission-based organization is powering financial literacy through gamification of concepts like acquiring and maintaining a good credit profile. The company’s first game, a downloadable app, is called Credit Stacker.

Founded in 2013, the Wealth Factory reflects both the vision and experience of its leadership team. Co-fonder Angel Rich, honed her expertise in financial inclusion and behavioral economics as a market re
search analyst at Prudential. She also led initiatives for financial literacy among veterans, as well as comprehensive research aimed at marketing financial services to blacks, the landmark African American Financial Experience Study. In addition, Rich has designed financial literacy curricula used across the state of New Jersey, and through her work at the Wealth Factory, has influenced financial education in more than 28 states.

During her senior year at Hampton University, after working on a Goldman Sachs case competition for business students, the need for financial gamification first came to mind. “It occurred to me that there needs to be some type of game where people can live out their financial life, without the risk of losing their money.”

Joining forces with Rich at the Wealth Factory is chief strategy officer Dominique Broadway. This rising star is building a reputation as one of the top financial advisors to the Millennial generation through her work with ultra-high net worth individuals at UBS and Edelman starting as a 21-year-old graduate of Bowie State University. An award-winning entrepreneur, speaker, and advisor, Broadway brings a trailblazing edge to the organization that adds fuel to the fire developed by Rich and co-founder/chief operations officer Courtney Keen. Broadway has seemingly lived multiple financial lifetimes before the age of 30, complementing the wisdom and innovation of her colleagues.

The Wealth Factory has experienced steady growth since its founding, due to an aggressive collaboration strategy that now boasts more than a dozen strategic partnerships impacting youth financial literacy at local, regional, and national levels from its home base in Washington, DC. The organization’s latest partner, for bringing the company’s emerging brands to greater prominence with Millennials and Generation Z, is Ally Studios, a division of Creative Allies.

Austin Henley, senior marketing strategist at Creative Allies, met Rich and Broadway at this spring’s South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas. “The Creative Allies team and the leadership of the Wealth Factory found common ground immediately,” said Henley. “Angel Rich has a vision to disrupt fintech in ways that appeal to Millennials and younger generations, and the team at the Wealth Factory is taking a bold approach to building its business on a huge mission, commitment to partnering, and of course, leading-edge technology.”

Technology startups have a set of needs that while simple in nature, can be more difficult to execute because of the pressure to scale quickly with multiple constituencies. “Startups, especially those in the technology space, as well as those that are minority-owned, have multiple hills to climb,” said Henley. “Great brands are built from the ground up through trust—developing trust and being taken seriously, by a firm’s earliest customers, partners, and especially the investors injecting capital to properly scale. At Creative Allies, we know first-hand, from our own experience and through working with multiple brands, the challenges startups face and the solutions needed to overcome them.”

Minority-owned startups have an additional challenge, according to Henley. “Startups founded by minority entrepreneurs need to be taken every bit as seriously as other early-stage companies, gaining access to the same resources and solutions like human and financial capital enjoyed by other young entities.”

WealthyLife will benefit from the ability of the Creative Allies design community to deliver graphic inspiration at remarkable scale. From pitch decks to websites, social channels, and collateral, companies like the Wealth Factory can move at a brand development pace that matches the speed of available market opportunities that tech startups face, without sacrificing quality. In a matter of weeks, the 125,000-designer strong Creative Allies community can generate hundreds of compelling designs, color palettes, and visual brand assets applicable across digital and analog platforms.

According to Rich, the choice to work with Creative Allies was a simple one. “Creative Allies, like the Wealth Factory, is itself powered by a set of young, diverse minds trained on a larger mission,” said Rich. “Like our young company, they are bringing people together to solve big problems and have fun while they’re doing it. We really connected with their unique value proposition of reaching Millennials and younger generations digitally, developing our brand while also helping us build our community of fans and users of games like Credit Stacker.”

As the WealthyLife/Creative Allies engagement continues to take shape, says Henley, “People will know Angel, Courtney, Dominique and their emerging platform for financial gamification for its bold, innovative stance in the marketplace.”

Angel Rich, founder and CEO of the Wealth Factory, has just published her first book, History of the Black Dollar. She explores significant economic moments in history that have helped shape America, from slavery and sharecropping to convict leasing, the Little Rock Nine, Black Wall Street, the Civil Rights Movement, the Great Recession, Black Lives Matter, and other important milestones. In addition, Angel highlights other figures, some lesser-known, who have made these black, financially historical moments possible through their personal diligent efforts. History of the Black Dollar aims to help older generations remember, while enlightening younger generations on the progression of America and its direct correlation to the support of black Americans that will inspire both groups to continue promoting economic social justice. Find History of the Black Dollar on Amazon today.